Experts say the best way to keep people out of prison is to educate them — and start young.

"I grew up on a farm, and I don't know anybody who loaded a truck from the back end, but that's what we're doing," said Oleta Fitzgerald, director of the Children's Defense Fund's Southern Regional Office. "We've got remediation for students in school, we've got remediation before they go to college, but we don't want to invest on the front end."

The four-decade Perry Preschool Project in Michigan found that early education for at-risk children cuts their likelihood of incarceration in half.

"Children come here smart," Fitzgerald said. "They're wired to be smart, but if they get misdirected, it affects them down the line."

The actions of Mississippi speak louder than words, she said, constructing prisons in the poorest parts of the state instead of building new schools.

Poor schools remain bereft of the technology they need to succeed, she said. "We've got to quit acting like that doesn't matter."

The problem with holding students back is it increases the odds they will drop out, she said. "And once children drop out, they're in that cradle-to-prison pipeline, and that's when they start getting in trouble."

Concerned about the youth he saw, Gulfport Municipal Judge Thomas Payne found that 65 percent of those who committed violent crimes got their start in municipal court.

He decided to run a youth offender program on the Gulf Coast to teach character and citizenship skills, which he said reduced recidivism to less than 10 percent in the program.

"We did it twice, two years each time, and over 100 cadets went through it," he said. "The money just ran out, and we were doing it for less than $2,000 a kid."

He said he still believes more should be done to "reach these kids early to change their trajectory. I believe that's the answer."

Mississippi spends three times more to incarcerate an inmate for a year — $15,151 — than it does to educate a student.

"It's embarrassing that we're spending more money on incarcerating than educating," said national corrections expert Lindsay Hayes. "We spend so much on jail. We could use the same money in treatment, rehabilitation and community programs."

Shorter sentences

Despite the fact the crime rate has declined in the U.S. more than 40 percent, the number sent to prison has quadrupled in places like Mississippi in recent decades.

"We're addicted to incarceration," said Paul DeMuro, former commissioner of Juvenile Justice in Pennsylvania. "And we believe that addiction can be cured by longer and longer sentences under the notion that longer punishment is more effective."

Last year, corrections cost Mississippi taxpayers $389 million, and that number is $80 billion nationally, according to a Brookings Institution's report.

"We could save billions of dollars if we would simply reduce sentences," DeMuro said. Judges could shorten sentences and require offenders to serve the rest of their time in community service, he said.

Steve Pickett, chairman of the state Parole Board, believes the state should adopt sentencing guidelines. "A sentence for the same crime can vary as much as five years," he said.

Correctional officers serve a critical role in the process.

Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps has pushed for higher salaries for these officers, whose starting annual pay of $22,006 qualifies their family of three for food stamps.

DeMuro believes pay for officers should be raised to "a decent salary. And if you do a better job and your unit is run well, you get paid more."

When Bryan Shaver of Olive Branch walked inside the State Penitentiary at Parchman, he presumed it would be his only time. Instead, he has returned many times through the Kairos Prison Ministry, he said.

He sometimes tells inmates, "When I first came in here, I would have put all of you in the electric chair. Now I'm your biggest advocate."

He said he believes faith offers the power to transform those behind bars. "It's amazing to watch these guys change."

But some wind up so shattered, they face a difficult transition.

R. Cliff Johnson, director of the University of Mississippi School of Law's MacArthur Justice Center, said the nation's insistence on long sentences and isolation "break down people, who are not going to be productive members of society when they get out."

Jackson lawyer Donald Boykin remembers a frantic client calling him.

"I'm ready to go back to prison," the client told him. "I just can't handle it."

His client, who had walked out of prison after 10 years, was ready to return because he felt harassed by his parole officer for failing to get a job in two months, Boykin said.

While behind bars, Gary Moore earned a GED and was going to work on college courses, but the program was shut down, he said.

After 22 years, he was released to his family in the Delta and managed to get a job. "Anything that goes on in prison I've seen," he said, "and I came out all right, thanks to God."

Reentry system

Mississippi desperately needs a reentry system for those leaving prison, U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett said.

He is part of a newly formed Reentry Council with Epps, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr. and others, aimed at providing rehabilitation to prisoners and connecting them with resources as they leave.

If something isn't done, Starrett said, "We just incarcerate them again and have another victim."

More than three fourths of those who emerge from prison end up being arrested again within five years, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. "That was shocking to me," Starrett said.

Mississippi measures recidivism by whether those who leave prison are convicted and return to prison within three years. That number is 32.98 percent.

Starrett said just cutting recidivism by 5 percent a year, Mississippi would make significant strides.

"The biggest problem is the mindset," he said. "People think once somebody has committed a crime, they don't deserve anything."